Buzzsprout Weekly

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Dorktales Storytime has more than 100 character voices. They all belong to Jonathan Cormur! Jonathan started telling these stories live while his sister’s theater troupe set up for performances. When the pandemic dried up his voice acting auditions, his family turned the stories into a podcast. His sister Molly writes and directs, his mom Jodi keeps everythi...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' You already have a podcast. But maybe there’s another idea you keep coming back to: a topic that doesn’t quite fit your current show, a conversation you’d love to have, or a project you want to try with a friend. You know how to record an episode, but launching a new show means choosing a name, writing a description, finding the right categories, and creatin...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' You check your podcast stats and notice one platform has a much bigger number than the others. It’s tempting to think that’s where you should put more of your time. But first, it helps to know what’s being counted. This week on Buzzcast, the team explains why a view, a play, and a download aren’t interchangeable, and why adding them together won’t necessaril...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Your podcast has probably evolved since you launched it. But when you’re busy making episodes, it’s easy to leave the title, description, and artwork untouched. Those details are still introducing your show to new listeners, even if you haven’t thought about them in a while. We’ve added a live preview to Podcast Details so you can see how they work together....

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  If you’ve edited a few podcast transcripts, you probably know which words you’ll need to fix before you even open the next one. For Buzzcast, it’s often our own name: “Buzz Sprout” instead of “Buzzsprout.” Kevin wanted a way to make that correction without repeating it every time he went to edit a transcript.  So, we updated the transcript...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  Your personal website gives people another way to discover your podcast! And when they do, you want them to be able to start listening right there, without opening another app or searching for your show. That’s where your embed player comes in. We just added more ways to customize your Buzzsprout player so it can better fit your website and...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  Alban and Jordan are back from Podcast Movement in New York, and they came home with a lot to talk about. Podcasting has changed dramatically since Buzzsprout attended the first Podcast Movement in 2014. This year’s conference made that growth especially clear with bigger businesses and new conversations about where the industry is headed....

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  Most of the time, we’re trying to get our podcast in front of as many people as possible. But there are times when reaching a smaller, specific group makes more sense. Maybe you want to give subscribers bonus episodes, create exclusive content for your biggest fans, or add a podcast to a course or coaching program. That’s where a private po...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  A few months ago, Jordan needed to pitch a talk for Podcast Movement. There was just one problem: the deadline was coming up fast, and she was having trouble narrowing down what she wanted to talk about. So she went back to her podcast, Buzzcast . Jordan uploaded years of transcripts to ChatGPT and asked it to find the topics she kept comin...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  We spend a lot of time thinking about how to grow our podcasts. But after a year of hosting Podcasting Q&A , Cara realized her podcast had been growing something else: her confidence. Before taking over the show, Cara was used to being given a task and completing it. Now, she was responsible for writing, recording, editing, publishing,...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  Jeremy Gendelman had the recordings for ​ Yasha ​ sitting in a drawer for almost ten years. He'd recorded his grandfather telling the story of fleeing across the Soviet Union during the Nazi invasion of World War II.  At the time, Jeremy was mostly a curious grandson with an old camcorder. He had no idea what he'd captured! Years...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters!  Lately, I’ve noticed how much content is starting to sound the same. It's technically good, but so much of what we consume is optimized and often AI-assisted to the point where you can almost tell what the next sentence will be. And it got me wondering: Is the same thing happening to podcasts? On this week's episode of Buzzcast, t...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey Podcasters! Most podcasts have a host, producer, researcher, writer, and editor. On ​ Tiger Talk ​ , those jobs belong to fourth and fifth graders! The podcast is produced by EAST students at John Tyson Elementary School of Innovation in Arkansas, and when teacher Jennifer Boogaart says it’s student-led, she really means it. The students choose each seas...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey Podcasters! If you’ve ever tried embedding an episode in WordPress, you know it can take more clicks than it should. A small update to your site can turn into a lot of bouncing between menus just to get one episode in the right place. So we gave the Buzzsprout WordPress plugin a much-needed refresh. Now you can add an episode with a slash command, choose...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! If you're already recording video, you know the work doesn't end when the recording does. Next comes uploading the same episode file to multiple platforms just to get it everywhere you want it. But now, you can publish video episodes to Spotify and YouTube directly from your Buzzsprout account. Upload one video to Buzzsprout, and w...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! Podcast equipment has gotten a lot better over the last few years. Unfortunately, it's also gotten a lot more confusing. There are hundreds of microphones, dozens of audio interfaces, and no shortage of YouTube videos telling you the "best" setup. It's easy to spend weeks researching gear instead of recording your next ep...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! It's easy to assume your podcast grows because you publish consistently, improve your audio, or spend more time promoting each episode. But what if your biggest growth opportunities were decided long before someone ever pressed play? This week on Buzzcast, Jordan is joined by podcast strategist Courtney Elmer to talk about the small dec...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! About a month ago, the Buzzcast team turned the show into a video podcast. Rather than speculate about whether video is worth it, they decided to try it themselves and see what actually happened. Some parts have been exactly what they expected. Others... not so much! In this episode of Buzzcast they discussed what they learned after the firs...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey Podcasters! One of my favorite things about podcasting is that your show almost never grows the way you expect it to! Kristin and Steve started their podcast, ​ Cycling Together with Kristin & Steve ​ , thinking it would help people discover their bike shop. Instead, it opened up an otherwise intimidating hobby to a lot of new riders!  Every two week...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey Podcasters! For years, Rich and Andrew kept hearing the same thing from their social media followers: " You should start a podcast." As flight attendants, they'd built a large audience by creating polished, entertaining videos online. So if they were going to launch a podcast, they knew listeners would expect that same experience.  They wa...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey Podcasters! One of the reasons I love highlighting Buzzsprout creators is that they often find uses for podcasting that most of us would never think of! Take ​ Got Any Cows ​ . It's a podcast hosted by Seth Christensen, who runs a cattle operation in Idaho. He originally started the show because he wanted a more consistent way to connect with custom...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! One of the questions we've been hearing a lot lately is: "If I'm making video for my podcast, should I put it on Apple Podcasts or YouTube? " The good news is that you don't necessarily have to choose. In this week's video, Tom Buck breaks down the differences between the two platforms and why they actually serv...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! Most podcast advice focuses on how to keep your show going. But this week on Buzzcast, we explored a different question: When is it time to start something new? We're not talking about quitting podcasting. In fact, quite the opposite. We're talking about when a podcast naturally reaches the end of its run.  Sometimes it's beca...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! It feels like every week there's a new post asking the same question: "Should I start a video podcast?" With video showing up in more podcast directories, and with Buzzsprout ​now offering video plans​ , it's easy to feel like you're falling behind if you're not recording every episode on camera. Video can be a...

Send a question for 'Ask Megan' Hey, Podcasters! A lot of podcasters assume getting booked as a guest is all about having a huge audience or impressive credentials. But that's usually not what hosts care about. Hosts want guests who have something clear to contribute and make the conversation interesting !  This week on Buzzcast , we’re joined again by Alex Sanfilippo, founder of ​Pod...